Dive Review of Manta Ray Bay Resort in
Micronesia/YAP

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Manta Ray Bay Resort: "Yap has Manta Rays, but ...", Dec, 2016, by Raymond Haddad, QC, CA ( Sr. Reviewer 10 reports with 9 Helpful votes). Report 9460 has 3 Helpful votes.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	We stayed at the Manta Ray Bay Resort for 14 nights during the 2016/2017 Xmas holidays. I will separate the resort in three parts: the resort, the restaurant called Mnuw and the dive center. The resort: Nothing fancy, clean, very slow internet, no TV channels (you can rent a DVD player and videos), it is located in the channel (no beach), it has a small pool with a few chairs, no gym, … not much to do besides diving! Staff is very polite. The restaurant MNUW: Breakfast is included with your package. You can get eggs to taste, bacon, pancakes, bread (plane toast), pastries and fruit which is ONLY bananas, oranges and watermelon. No yogurt, no cereal, no cheese, no cold cuts … The breakfast gets boring after a while! Lunch and dinner is the exact same menu. 50% of the items are bad, 25% are just barely ok and the remaining 25% ok. The bread used for burgers and sandwiches is thick and dry. The salad dressing is always the same one. Chicken is only the upper thigh, no white meat. They offer fish tacos but make sure you ask for it in a burrito or else it will come in hard shell taco … strange! Stay away from the fish taco with jalapenos and pineapple … trust me! The spaghetti is a portion for three people. At night, they offer the catch of the day (mahi-mahi or wahoo) with rice or mashed potatoes with some veggies for $14.95 along with the standard menu. After 14 days eating the same menu, I could not take it anymore! Yap dive center: Each boat can accommodate up to 8 divers with a captain and a guide. There are no toilets on the boat, some shade, no rinse tanks for cameras or masks. They provide dry towels, they set up your gear, they can also clean and rinse you equipment. Two dives are offered in the morning and one in the afternoon. Between dives, water, hot black tea, cake and fruit are offered. They don’t require a check out dive, they look very fast at your dive cards, the typical PADI questionnaire is not what I have seen before, not many questions asked, no chart to log in your nitrox tank number, percentage, max depth … not what PADI taught us to do. They will mix dives of different levels, experience, air and nitrox all with the same guide. A few times, my wife and I waited 10 minutes on the bottom for others. Security is not their main concern. During the winter months, it is not always possible to dive on the outer reefs. Therefore, either you go to the manta cleaning station or you dive in the channel … both with limited visibility. We did not dive the reefs on the east side because the sea was to rough. We were told that the reefs on the east side are bad. We dove mostly on the west side of the island which is only average. The best diving is in the south-western part of the island. It can take about an hour to get there. The manta cleaning station is located in a channel on the west side of the island. You take a nice boat ride through the mangrove forest. The manta cleaning station is about 15-20 feet deep, visibility is average and can get crowed especially if the seas are rough when the boats can’t make out to the reefs. If you want to see sharks, go to Vertigo. The visibility is great and the sharks (grey reef and black tips) are always there … guess why? I found that the fish, turtles… are very shy and hard to get close to compared to all other dive destinations I have been to. You won’t see big schools of fish. I think that they need to do some conservation effort. After doing 24 dives, it got very repetitive. Summary: 14 days was too long. Yes you should go once for 5 to 7 days and combine this with a trip to Palau which you can get a direct flight to.
Websites	Manta Ray Bay Resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Bahamas, Belize, Honduras, Australia, Palau, Fiji, Indonesia, Turks & Caicos, Maldives, Philippines, Cozumel, YAP
Closest Airport	YAP airport	Getting There	United Airlines: LAX, Honolulu, Guam, YAP
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, rainy, cloudy	Seas	choppy
Water Temp	78-81°F / 26-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	40-100 Ft/ 12-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Duration 60-70 minutes, start safety stop at 500 psi
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	Squadrons
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	There was no rinse tank on the boat. If all divers would have large camera equipment, it would be an issue.

Report currently has 3 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Manta Ray Bay Resort in Micronesia/YAP

Manta Ray Bay Resort: "Yap has Manta Rays, but ...", Dec, 2016,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Manta Ray Bay Resort in
Micronesia/YAP